Many articles of manufacture are specifically designed to meet required damping levels in order to deaden structural or acoustical vibration. For example, laminated sheet metal is utilized to deaden noise in various applications, such as in automotive panels and consumer appliances. Damping of such articles has heretofore typically been determined according to a strictly controlled procedure carried out offline (i.e., not on the production line) utilizing carefully prepared test samples. Often, the test samples are made by hand in a laboratory and may not accurately reflect the damping capability of the actual article of manufacture formed by manufacturing processes on the production line. Standard procedures for determining damping utilize a transfer function, plotted as a response curve, which represents the output or response of the test sample to a known, controlled excitation or input. A determination of damping capability is derived from the transfer function by measuring the amplitude of the peaks in the response curve.